Journal
FRONTIERS IN NEUROSCIENCE
Volume 15, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
FRONTIERS MEDIA SA
DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2021.636268
Keywords
neonatal brain MRI; super-resolution; image reconstruction; anisotropic acquisition; isotropic reconstruction; fast imaging; spatial resolution; high-resolution MRI
Categories
Funding
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
- National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
- National Institute of Mental Health
- Office Of The Director, National Institutes Of Health of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) [R01 NS079788, R01 EB019483, R01 EB018988, R01 NS106030, IDDRC U54 HD090255, S10OD025111]
- Boston Children's Hospital Translational Research Program
- Technological Innovations in Neuroscience Award from the McKnight Foundation
- Thrasher Research Fund
- National Multiple Sclerosis Society [PP-1905-34002]
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The study aimed to improve the quality of neonatal brain MRI by using super-resolution reconstruction and fast imaging protocols, achieving higher spatial resolution and reduced scan times. By aligning short duration scans and applying reconstruction techniques, considerable improvements in spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio were achieved. The results demonstrated the feasibility of fast and high-quality neonatal brain MRI for both scientific research and clinical studies.
The brain of neonates is small in comparison to adults. Imaging at typical resolutions such as one cubic mm incurs more partial voluming artifacts in a neonate than in an adult. The interpretation and analysis of MRI of the neonatal brain benefit from a reduction in partial volume averaging that can be achieved with high spatial resolution. Unfortunately, direct acquisition of high spatial resolution MRI is slow, which increases the potential for motion artifact, and suffers from reduced signal-to-noise ratio. The purpose of this study is thus that using super-resolution reconstruction in conjunction with fast imaging protocols to construct neonatal brain MRI images at a suitable signal-to-noise ratio and with higher spatial resolution than can be practically obtained by direct Fourier encoding. We achieved high quality brain MRI at a spatial resolution of isotropic 0.4 mm with 6 min of imaging time, using super-resolution reconstruction from three short duration scans with variable directions of slice selection. Motion compensation was achieved by aligning the three short duration scans together. We applied this technique to 20 newborns and assessed the quality of the images we reconstructed. Experiments show that our approach to super-resolution reconstruction achieved considerable improvement in spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio, while, in parallel, substantially reduced scan times, as compared to direct high-resolution acquisitions. The experimental results demonstrate that our approach allowed for fast and high-quality neonatal brain MRI for both scientific research and clinical studies.
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